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Argument Prefixes

November 19, 2005 — Carrie

So the way this works is, the verb has to have a prefix indicating the gender and number of the subject and object (this is a nom/acc language, by the way). Basic word order is SOV, leading to rather more prefixes than suffixes. There are four grammatical genders: neuter, epicene, masculine and feminine. These pretty much follow the natural gender of the referent: a generic animal is epicene, a tree is neuter (unless it’s a ginkgo), a mare is feminine, a father is masculine, etc. People insisting on referring to cars and boats as feminine are to be humored.

Here are the tables of argument prefixes:

singular object

none

masc.

fem.

epi.

neut.

singular subject

none

ve

shi

go

wed

dhu

masc.

mis

dhi

pe

yu

da

fem.

lla

te

with

za

ni

epi.

su

bin

zha

mo

li

neut.

ya

no

thu

lle

sa

plural object

none

masc.

fem.

epi.

neut.

singular subject

none

ve

fal

thi

sho

ru

masc.

mis

ze

fu

ro

zhi

fem.

lla

shi

ven

tha

na

epi.

su

la

ri

fe

mip

neut.

ya

so

ma

bet

vi

singular object

none

masc.

fem.

epi.

neut.

plural subject

none

ve

shi

go

wed

dhu

masc.

dizh

re

the

me

fa

fem.

zu

wa

fo

si

kag

epi.

le

lo

llag

mu

ri

neut.

ka

fer

za

zho

lli

plural object

none

masc.

fem.

epi.

neut.

plural subject

none

ve

fal

thi

sho

ru

masc.

dizh

llu

zha

se

yi

fem.

zu

ra

ne

zi

llod

epi.

le

lu

sha

way

zhu

neut.

ka

tu

sut

va

fi

So you decide on the gender and number of your subject and object, and attach the appropriate prefix to the verb:

John Mary péergòl: John sees Mary.
Dómìll yodis waergòl: Women see a man.

If you do this without any nouns, you get the implication of pronouns:
Péergòl: He sees her.
John péergòl: John sees her.
Mary péergòl: He sees Mary. (“Mary sees him” would be “Mary téergòl”)

More notes on the specialness of the null subject-null object “ve-” later.